Simon Montefiore: One Night in Winter

Andrei looked for a seat for what seemed like a horribly long time before sitting down with relief on one of the empty chairs opposite George and Serafima. A slim pale girl with fair hair sat down beside him. She looked at George and his friends, and then turned to Andrei as if she had just awoken from a dream.

‘Oh, hello. You’re new?’

‘Yes,’ said Andrei.

‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘I’m Rosa Shako.’

She must be Marshal Shako’s daughter, thought Andrei, who’d seen the air force commander just outside the school. When they’d shaken hands, she gazed over at George’s row as if she’d forgotten him again.

‘Those are my friends,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you meet George outside school?’

‘Not really.’

‘It must be hard arriving for the last term of the year,’ she said. Andrei thought that with her blue eyes and flaxen ringlets she looked just like an angel in a children’s book. ‘You see the red-haired boy?’

‘The one who’s sitting next to Serafima?’

A cloud crossed her face. ‘That’s Nikolasha Blagov. My friend.’ She’d opened her mouth to say something else when – hush – everyone’s voices sank to a whisper. The teachers entered, filing in order of importance down the aisle and up the steps to the stage in exactly the same way Stalin and the Politburo entered at Congresses.

‘Do you know who they all are?’ asked Rosa kindly.

‘I only know her,’ said Andrei as Director Medvedeva herself marched forward on to the stage, followed – presumably – by her deputy, a man whose greasy straggle of auburn hair, brushed over his baldness, had the texture of a woven basket.

‘That’s Dr Rimm,’ whispered Rosa as he passed them. ‘Serafima, who thinks up all the nicknames, calls him the Hummer. Listen.’ Comrade Rimm was loudly humming a tune that was unmistakably ‘May Comrade Stalin Live Many, Many Long Years’.

‘Quiet, George,’ said Dr Rimm in a high voice. ‘Eyes straight ahead, Serafima. Sit up straight. Discipline!’

Then came the rest of the teachers. ‘That’s Comrade Satinov’s wife, Tamara,’ said Rosa. ‘She teaches us English.’

A strapping old gentleman, whose wrinkly knees the colour of tanned leather were framed between flappy blue shorts and scarlet socks, entered next. ‘That’s Apostollon Shuba, our physical instructor. Do you think he looks like a sergeant major in the Tsarist army? Well, he was!’

‘Really?’ How on earth had this relic with the pitchfork-shaped moustaches survived the Terror? Andrei thought. But he was one of a generation of children brought up to believe that discretion was the essence of life, so he said nothing.

One seat was still empty. And then a teacher in a baggy sand-coloured suit and striped socks jumped nimbly on to the back of the stage. A murmur buzzed through the children.

‘Always last,’ said Rosa softly. ‘Let’s see! Look at that new canary-yellow tie! That’s Benya Golden, our Pushkin teacher.’ Andrei saw an agile, balding man with receding fair hair and a playful smile slip into his seat. ‘Serafima calls him the Romantic. If you’re lucky you’ll be in his class; if you’re unlucky, you’ll get Rimm the Hummer.’

Another bell heralded a rigorous silence. Director Medvedeva tapped her baton on her lectern. ‘Welcome back to the school in our era of the historic victory won by the genius of our Leader, Comrade Stalin.’ She turned to Dr Rimm, who stepped forward.

‘One question, Komsomolniki!’ he piped in a voice that might, on the telephone, be mistaken for that of a soprano. ‘If you had to lose all your possessions or your Komsomol badge, which would you choose?’

A boy with his hair brushed back in a slick wave like the Soviet leaders stood and led the reply: ‘All our possessions!’ he cried.

Andrei recognized him as the other Satinov boy.

‘It’s George’s brother Marlen,’ confirmed Rosa in his ear. She smelled of rosewater. ‘Are you a Komsomol, Andrei?’

Andrei wished he was – but there was no place for tainted children in the Young Communists.

‘Young Pioneers! Rise! Young Pioneers, are you prepared?’ shouted Dr Rimm. The red-scarfed Pioneers replied as one.

‘ Always prepared! ’

‘Bravo, Pioneers.’ Dr Rimm scanned the gym. Andrei was too old to be a Pioneer now, but he would have given anything to wear the red scarf.

Director Medvedeva tapped her baton. ‘Would Mariko Satinova come up to the rostrum,’ she said. That family are everywhere, thought Andrei as a little girl with plaits and a red scarf appeared on the side of the stage.

Tap, tap from the director’s baton: the sign to a young blonde teacher at the piano, who started to bang out the opening bars that Andrei knew so well.

‘And who’s the pianist?’ he asked.

‘That’s Agrippina Begbulatova, the assistant music teacher,’ answered Rosa as the little girl started to sing the first lines of the schoolchild’s anthem, ‘Thank you, Comrade Stalin, For Our Happy Childhood’. Andrei could sing it in his sleep; in fact, sometimes he did.

Director Medvedeva made announcements about the term: about the Pioneers camping at Artek in the Crimea; the second eleven football team would play the VM Molotov Commune School 54. Benya Golden seemed to regard many of these bulletins as faintly amusing, noticed Andrei as the teachers filed out, and the school term began.

Director Medvedeva was writing at her desk when Andrei was ushered in to see her. Her office was furnished with a single Bakelite phone, a small photograph of Stalin, and a tiny safe. (Andrei knew that the number of phones, and the size and quality of Stalin portraits and safes were all measures of power.) A banner across one entire wall declared: ‘Thank you, dear marshal, for our freedom, our children’s joy, our life.’

She gestured towards a wooden chair. ‘Welcome to the school. We forge new Soviet citizens, understand?’

Andrei waited miserably for the ‘but’ which he knew from bitter experience would not be long in coming.

‘But you have a tainted biography. Most of my colleagues here don’t approve of your admission. I doubt it will work out, but it’s only for a term. I shall watch you for the slightest sign of deviationism. That will be all, Kurbsky.’

He walked with heavy steps to the door as she too stood up briskly. ‘You must go to your first class. Follow me!’

Andrei’s mind whirred: should he ask about the fees? What was the point? It sounded as if she would get rid of him soon enough. Their footsteps echoed along the wooden corridor, which was by now deserted. Trying to keep up with her, Andrei thought her flaky skin and lank hair had never enjoyed the kiss of sunlight in all her life. At last, she stopped outside a closed door and gestured to him to come closer.

‘You won’t be paying school fees.’

Andrei opened his mouth to ask how, why? But she silenced him with a glance.

‘Do not discuss this, Kurbsky. Understood? Here’s your class.’ She turned like a sentry and the march of her metal-heeled boots receded down the long corridor.

Andrei wanted to scream with relief, but knew he must not. Tell no one. Reveal nothing. Analyse its meaning later. Struggling to control his breathing, he steadied his shaking hands and knocked on the door.

His first lesson was Russian literature but he did not know if he would get Dr Rimm or Teacher Golden. Which would be more helpful? As he opened the door, twenty-five sets of eyes swivelled towards him – and Andrei immediately noticed with a mixture of thrill and anxiety that Serafima, the Satinov brothers and the severe red-haired boy named Nikolasha were in his class. Only Rosa nodded at him.

‘Ah – a stranger!’ said Benya Golden, who was sitting languidly in his chair with his feet on the desk. ‘Come on in! We’re just starting.’